He sighed, his voice filled with what sounded like genuine regret. "I can’t just stand by and watch that happen. What’s more, the villagers already think I’m Lucy’s boyfriend. If I don’t marry her, her reputation will be ruined."
My heart ached and tears rolled down my face. "And what about me?"
Gregory frowned, straightening his back. "Rosalie, you’re being selfish. Right now, Lucy needs me more than you do."
He continued, tone calm but dismissive, "I’m not abandoning you. I’m just giving Lucy a wedding."
I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.
He betrayed me, hurt me and still had the audacity to paint me as the selfish one.
Had he forgotten why he had proposed to me so hastily earlier this year?
It was because my grandmother, nearing the end of her life, had wanted to see me in a wedding dress before she passed.
Gregory had knelt before me then, promising my grandmother that he would cherish me for the rest of my life.
The wedding date was set, the dress chosen and the invitations sent. Yet it wasn’t my wedding.
That evening, Lucy brought me tea, her expression dripping with mockery.
"Rosalie, even if your family is wealthier than mine, what does it matter? Brother Gregory still chose me."
As she spoke, the teacup in her hand tipped over, spilling scalding tea onto my leg. I jumped in pain, instinctively letting out a cry.
At the same time, Lucy shrieked dramatically, clutching her hand.
Gregory came rushing in, his attention immediately on her. He grabbed her hand with a mix of panic and tenderness, inspecting the redness from the spill. Then he turned on me, his voice filled with reproach.
"Rosalie! Lucy came to apologize to you and this is how you repay her? How could you be so cruel as to burn her like this?"
Before I could respond, he was already pulling Lucy away to treat her injury, leaving me standing there, my knee burning and the skin already broken from the scalding.
"Rosalie, do you think this wedding dress suits me?"
Lucy’s voice snapped me out of my memories. I looked at the phone she handed me.
On the screen was a photo of her wearing a stunning, luxurious wedding dress—my wedding dress.
She smiled smugly. "Brother Gregory said you’d already paid for this dress, so I thought, why waste it? I’ll take it."
Before she left, she flaunted the diamond ring on her finger, twisting her hand in the light.